Fairtrade Certified Maltesers in Ireland & UK

22 June 2012

The first packs of Fairtrade certified MALTESERS® are now available in the UK and Ireland, following the Mars–Fairtrade agreement announced last September.

The cocoa will come from cooperatives in West Africa, and this move will contribute in excess of US $1 million in annual Fairtrade Premium funds for cocoa farmers’ groups to invest in their farms, business organizations and communities.

Fairtrade works with around 100 000 cocoa farmers in the West African countries of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Increased demand for ethical and sustainable cocoa from the region has led to an increase in the number of farmers’ cooperatives that are able to benefit from Fairtrade, particularly Côte d'Ivoire where the number of Fairtrade certified cocoa cooperatives has increased from 15 groups to almost 50 over the past 18 months.

Over 110 million packs of MALTESERS are sold in the UK and Ireland per year - over 5 billion Maltesers in total.